In an earlier blog post I briefly mentioned a 2 dollar app called Siesta Text. Iâ€™ve spent a few days with this app and after a few initial problems I found Siesta Text to be very useful, especially for the holidays and other social events. Be warned, however, if you use third party messaging services such as the very popular Handcent. Siesta Text does not play nice with Handcent or GO SMS, but I was able to work around this in Handcent by deselecting Handcent as the default messaging app. This doesnâ€™t affect how Handcent works; it will still send notifications, and you also need to disable notifications in Androidâ€™s stock messaging service because it becomes active again. Doing this allows Siesta Text to gain access to your text messages that GO SMS and Handcent intercept.

Ignoring this issue, Siesta Text really brings a lot to the table for a relatively low price. In case you arenâ€™t familiar with the aforementioned blog post; it dealt with ways to unplug for the holidays while not completing dropping off the face of the earth. Siesta Text allows you to set an away message similar to away messages frequently used for work emails; this works for by sending out a custom text message to those who call or text you. Other than the issue between third-party messaging applications, Siesta Text runs extremely well and, other than a few force closures, I found no performance issues with the app.

This app allows you to save up to 20 different away messages which can be set to repeat for specific time periods. For example, if you have a meeting every Monday morning from 10-11 am Siesta Text will automatically silence your phone and send an away message to those trying to reach you. Calls and text messages still display as they normally would so you can answer if you want and there is a built in limit to how many times Siesta Text will respond to one phone number.

Overall, Siesta Text is a great idea followed up with great execution and a helpful dev team to boot. I would recommend giving Siesta Text a shot even if it means doing some finagling with your current messaging client.